War & Conflict

Nearly two decades after the first littoral combat ship entered naval service, the final one was commissioned this weekend. The crew, shipbuilders, officials and family gathered Saturday near the banks of Lake Erie in the city of Cleveland for the commissioning of the USS Cleveland, the Navy’s newest ship . The Cleveland is a 378-foot long ship, with a crew of roughly 90 sailors. It’s the 16th and final Freedom-class ship to enter service.  The speakers at the ceremony were upbeat, w

Thousands of sailors from the Ford Carrier Strike Group were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation today for their active role in the war with Iran, where they dealt with constant threat of enemy attack while carrying out or coordinating hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presented the Presidential Unit Citation to the crews in Norfolk, Virginia. According to the citation, signed by Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, the award is for “outstanding

American and Nigerian forces killed the Islamic State’s director of global operations in a Friday evening operation, U.S. African Command said. The joint operation killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, according to President Donald Trump, who announced the mission and al-Minuki’s death in a social media post Friday night. Trump described al-Minuki as ISIS’s “second in command” globally. The strike was the largest U.S. operation in Nigeria since Christmas, when U.S. forces fired multiple missiles at mil

Members of the Air Force Reserve’s 920th Rescue Wing helped save 11 airplane crash survivors off the coast of Florida on May 12. The Reserve Airmen were flying an HC-130J Combat King II and an HH-60W Jolly Green II on a routine training flight when a Coast Guard call diverted their mission. A twin-engine turboprop aircraft signaled the Coast Guard with a potential distress call that morning May 12. The Coast Guard dispatched its own plane to search and called upon the 920th from Patrick Sp

There is some confusion as to why China’s UN ambassador just criticized the US-Bahraini resolution on the Strait of Hormuz, given that Trump officials claim that the Chinese told Trump in Beijing that they agree that the Strait must be reopened.The confusion may be about what “open” actually means in this context.Based on my discussions with Chinese diplomats, “open” to the Chinese means that traffic flows through the Strait. Oil, gas, and goods come in and out. Money exchanges hands. Trade prev

HONOLULU — The U.S. Army is continuing to tweak its formations to position the service for success in future fights, with the latest move the establishment of the Multi-Domain Command-Pacific, or MDC-PAC.The new two-star command will combine the 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, Army leaders announced during the 2026 Land Forces of the Pacific Symposium and Exposition in Hawaii. Speaking to reporters at the symposium, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, commanding gene

Lawmakers on Friday accused the Pentagon of gutting a congressionally mandated effort to reduce civilian harm after a new Inspector General investigation found the Defense Department had started shutting down the initiative despite a legal requirement to maintain it. During a House Armed Services Committee hearing, lawmakers pressed Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve over the watchdog’s report that the DoD had proposed hollowing out civilian harm m

Depot-level maintenance took longer than expected for nearly three-quarters of Air Force aircraft from fiscal 2019-2024, according to a new report, as unplanned repairs rise across the aging fleet.  The report, from the Government Accountability Office, also found that the extent of the delays has been masked because officials often revise their target timelines after unplanned work occurs.  “As a result, the A

A bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled legislation on Thursday that would dismantle the government agency responsible for maintaining the military draft database of young, eligible men.The bill — advanced by Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. — would phase out the Selective Service System, citing its annual operating cost of more than $31 million per year. The senators argued that the agency has been largely defunct since 1973, the last time the United Sta

Executive Summary: A decade of increasingly specific policy direction in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—Five-Year plans, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) technical mandates—has shifted focus from basic science to engineering targets and deployment, effectively guiding both industry pathways and investor behavior.  The sector is supported by a multi-tiered, state-aligned capital architecture that provides large-scale, patient funding, r

Executive Summary: The Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law creates statutory obligations that will lead to more comprehensive enforcement of Beijing’s assimilationist agenda. Local governments will create new regulations and update old ones to bring their practices in line with its mandates, and appropriate more resources for “forging a common Chinese national consciousness.” The law builds on more than 20 provincial regulations and laws that have accumulated over more than 15&nb

Executive Summary: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is constructing a functional closed-door regime for the core factors of production, simultaneously retaining people, capital, frontier technology, and proprietary information inside the country under the banner of national security. Mobility controls once limited to senior cadres now extend across the entire administrative apparatus and into the private sector, with judicial and administrative exit bans applicable to ordinary citizen

Executive Summary: Since 2025, Panama has pushed back against the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) influence in its region by leaving the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and cancelling Hong Kong firm CK Hutchinson’s port concessions on the Panama Canal. In the meantime, Panama has deepened ties with the United States. Beijing has responded aggressively to Panama’s about-face by lashing out against the Panamanian Supreme Court’s ruling canceling the concession, diplomatically threate

Executive Summary: In March, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Regulations on Military Theory Work officially took effect. The regulations fundamentally reshape the Chinese military theory development system. The regulations mainly divide military theory work into two major categories: vertical control and horizontal division of labor. These categories cover five major areas: the management system, content and publication procedures, the full-process management chain, military theory a

A long-planned deployment of an Army long-range fire battalion to Germany has been canceled, a defense official confirmed to Task & Purpose.  The 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment had been scheduled to deploy to Germany later this year as part of episodic deployments of long-range fire capabilities that both countries announced in July 2024, Task & Purpose has confirmed. Now, several hundred soldiers from the Fort Drum, New York, unit are in limbo.  CNN first r

HONOLULU — Anduril is slated to deliver at least 3,000 surface-launched cruise missiles to the U.S. Army beginning in 2027, part of an effort to quickly advance affordable munitions procurement at scale.Over the course of the three-year framework agreement, Anduril will supply the Army with a minimum of 1,000 surface-launched Barracuda-500Ms per year, according to a company release.“Long-range precision fires and stand-off strike weapons are fundamental to America’s ability to deter our adversar

Army leaders struggled Friday to respond to congressional furor over the Pentagon’s decision to abruptly cancel a deployment of more than 4,000 soldiers to Poland this month. Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve said in an Army budget hearing that the order to halt a planned 9-month rotation to Europe by 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division to Eastern Europe came from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. LaNeve and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said they were informed of

The U.S. Army is moving beyond battling individual drone threats as it experiments with tactics to combat — and attack with — throngs of unmanned aircraft in saturated skies. The latest iteration of Project Flytrap, a multinational exercise to test new drone technologies in a realistic conflict setting, pitted U.S. and allied forces against each other in scenarios that featured drone swarms, jamming systems and counter-UAS defenses that continue to redefine modern warfare.Army leaders have empha

Company executives told Breaking Defense the dual-use design targets a logistics gap between rear-operational hubs and forward units.

The world’s largest aircraft carrier is finally returning home after etching its name into Navy history books by completing the longest post-Vietnam deployment by a carrier, the service’s top officer confirmed Thursday.Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle announced during a House Armed Services Committee hearing that the USS Gerald R. Ford will arrive at its homeport of Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, this weekend after more than 320 days at sea.“We’re going to give our heroes a welcome